Интонация (2224-1)

Intonation
is the music of the language. In English, we use tone to signal
emotion, questioning, and parts of the sentence among many other
things. It's important to recognize the meaning behind the tones used
in everyday speech, and to be able to use them so that there are no
misunderstandings between the speaker and the listener. It is
generally true that mistakes in pronunciation of sounds can be
overlooked, but mistakes in intonation make a lasting impression.

Intonation
has always been a difficult thing to define. According to traditional
descriptions, intonation is «the melody of speech», and
is to be analysed in terms of variations in pitch. Intonation is said
to indicate the attitudes and emotions of the speaker, so that a
sentence like 'I think it's time to go now' can be said in a happy
way, a sad way, an angry way, and so on. While this is certainly
true, there is clearly more than just pitch variation involved in
conveying such things, so the definition of intonation becomes
considerably more complicated. It is clear that when we are
expressing emotions, we also use different voice qualities, different
speaking rates, facial expressions, gestures, and so on. We must
indicate what type of information tye are presenting and how it is
structured, and at the same time we must keep our listeners'
attention and their participation in the exchange of information.
Communicative interaction would be much more difficult without
intonation: think how many misunderstandings between people arise in
the exchange of e-mail messages, where intonation cannot play a role.

In
In English, as in many other languages, pitch is an important
component of accentuation, or prominence, both at the level of
individual words and at the level of longer utterances. In general,
we distinguish between pitches which are relatively steady-state,
i.e. which do not change level perceptibly, and those which change by
stepping or sliding up or down to another pitch level, as illustrated
in the figure below. English intonation characteristically slides or
transitions gradually from one pitch level to the next rather than
stepping up or down abruptly from one pitch level to the next. Thus,
English intonation is best represented by "humps" and
"waves" rather than by "angles" and "steps".

Sliding
contour Stepping contour

If
we look at a typical example, we would expect a falling pitch pattern
on a statement like this:

You
are from London

but
a rising pitch pattern if the same words are used as a question:

You
are from London?

Other
examples of meaning being changed by differences in intonation are -
the difference between

She
won`t go out with anyone

and

She
won`t go out with anyone

Is
the first one (with a falling movement on «any») says
that she will go out with nobody, while the second (with a
falling-rising pitch movement) says that she is careful about who she
goes with.

The
pitch of the voice is determined by the frequency with which the
vocal cords vibrate., The frequency of vibration of the vocal cords
is in turn determined by their thickness their length and their
tension. The modal pitch of the voice, i.e. one's natural average
pitch level, depends on the size of the vocal cords. In general, men
have thicker and longer vocal cords than women and children do. As a
result, the modal pitch of a man's voice is generally lower than that
of a woman or a child.

In
addition to its modal pitch, every individual voice has a pitch range
which can be achieved by adjustments of the vocal cords.

By
tightening the vocal cords, a person can raise the pitch of the voice
(vocal pitch); by loosening them, one can lower vocal pitch.

There
is also a natural variation in pitch associated with the amount of
air that is expended during speech. When the airflow through the
glottis is great, it causes the vocal cords to vibrate quickly. As
airflow is reduced, the effect on the vocal cords is diminished, and
the frequency of vibration decreases. Although it is possible to
override these natural effects - e.g. by changing the tension of the
vocal folds - in the unmarked case, the pitch of the voice will
descend naturally over an utterance as the speaker's breath is used
up. This effect is called downdrift.

As
a result of downdrift, there is a natural iconic association of
falling pitch with finality and related meanings such as assurance or
defini-tiveness. Conversely, there is a natural association of
non-falling (steady-state or rising) pitch with non-finality and
related meanings such as lack of assurance or non-definitiveness. The
difference between falling and non-falling or rising intonation is
represented by Cruttenden (1981) as that between "closed"
(assertive) and "open" (non-assertive) meaning.

Individual
words or phrases may in some cases constitute an entire utterance in
natural speech, as can be seen in the different intonation contours
for okay in figure.

Contour

Meaning

Example

Fall

Neutral

O

K

A

Y.

(I
accept this.)

High
Rise

Contradictory/

unbelieving

Y?

A

K

O

(I
don’t accept this.)

Low
Rise

Non-committal/

unfinished

KAY…

O

(I’m
listening.)

Fall
- Rise

uncertain

O
Y,

KA

(But
I’m doubtful.)

Rise
- Fall

With
commitment/

definite/

emphatic

KA

O

Y!

(Definitely.)

The
two compound patterns combine the meanings of falling and rising
intonation in interesting iconic meanings. The fall-rise pattern has
the meaning of both, i.e. both closed and open meaning. This
signifies both definiteness and indefiniteness simultaneously, in the
sense that a referent is instantiated but the utterance is not yet
completed or in the sense that the speaker feels some hesitancy,
reservation, doubt or uncertainty. The rise-fall pattern incorporates
the fall of completion or assurance of the first pattern with the
emotional overtone of a high pitch in the middle of the utterance.
This is a so-called swell tone used for emphatic meaning: as the tone
swells, the meaning or emphasis increases.

Brazil,
Coulthard and Johns (1980) point out the importance of relative
pitch, in a discourse context, e.g. for indicating affect or emotion.
Most importantly, relative pitch of an utterance shows the speaker's
attitude toward the information that he\she is conveying. The
neutral, unmarked, mid relative pitch - which is the speaker's modal
pitch - is used to make a statement in a neutral manner. In contrast,
high relative pitch indicates an informational contrast, as shown in
example (a). Because high key implies a contrast even when one is not
explicitly present in the discourse, it can be used to single out
individual words for special attention, as in example (b).

Y

H
a

ar
1

(a)
I'm going to vard, not e !!!

n

e

v
t t.

(b)
I'd er do ha

Low
key is used when the speaker wants to assert that two items in
successive tone units are in some sense equivalent, as in (c):

T

O

I
L

D

(c)
you already, du

mmy.

Here
the low key on dummy signals that it is to be interpreted as
confer-ential to you.

In
some varieties of English, e.g. those spoken in Ireland, Liverpool
and Hawaii, the terminal high rise in yes/no questions is replaced by
an earlier rise, with high pitch maintained until the tonic word or
phrase, followed by a fall as in

Ireland:
Would you like some tea?

Liverpool:
Did you go to the new supermarket?

Hawaii:
1) You need a general catalog?

You
get one book?

In
Hawaniian English, question tags comprising yea with high rising
pitch are frequent/ In Welsh English, question tags are emphasized by
a swell-tone (rise-fall patern) on the tag, which makes it more
definite or emphatic.